Quite simply, Gilbert Arenas is the first "blog superstar." Beginning in October 2006, Gilbert started to entertain fans with more than his scoring and jersey tossing on the court, but with an inside look into his whirlwind life with witty insights in his weekly posts on NBA.com. His Agent Zero Blog File was there for his scoring predictions, his 25th birthday bash and his All-Star experience in Vegas and continues to be considered the top blog of any pro athlete today.

Helping out kids is worth every penny.
Ned Dishman/NBAE/Getty Images

I just had my Scores for Schools event. I usually have a raffle for schools that are participating in it. Last year it was 183 total schools, this year it was actually 248 schools. I have 41 home games and Abe Pollin took over 41 games, the other half, for the road games. So what happens is for every point I make, I donate $100 dollars to the school that I’m shooting for that night. We had a good turn out and the crowd was hyped, everyone was going crazy and the kids was loving it and I didn’t want any of the kids going home sad because their school didn’t get picked so I decided for the remainder of the schools that didn’t get picked I was going to donate $1000 each to their schools.

It was just great that they took the time to draw up signs for me. That’s what it’s about; the kids that are in school. You try to better their chances of making it in life. It’s a community thing. I think every athlete should give back to schools. I know athletes donate and have things that they give charity to, but, at the end of the day, it’s the younger generation that we need to be helping.

For the last couple weeks people have been calling me saying, “Are you coming back to L.A.?”

I’m like, “Yeah, I am … NOT.”

“Why would I be coming back to L.A.? Don’t you know the season is getting ready to start?”

And they’re like, “No, they’re talking about you and Kobe getting traded for each other.”

And I’m like, “Oh, that’s what’s up. Sounds nice … NOT.”

Nothing against getting traded, but that would be a dumb thing on the part of the team who is accepting me because, don’t they know I’m a free agent? What that means is, if you lose somebody who you really want and you come get me back and I leave too … TA-DAH! That means you have nothing.

So take my name out of it because whoever gets me, there ain’t a guarantee that I’m staying.

Y’all go ahead and take my name out. To all of my friends back home who want me to become a Laker: If you have NBA LIVE 08 you can fantasy draft me, because otherwise I don’t think that’s happening any time soon.

I try not to look at the Western Conference teams. I do want to see how Kobe responds to all these trade rumors. I want to see if he’ll go out there and play his game or if he’s going to go out there and play the “I’m getting traded” game. I won’t really be able to tell based on tonight’s game though. It’s still the opener. A guy like him, he’s going to play team ball at the beginning, but when the season gets going on though and they need some wins, that’s when what I call “excellence” kicks in.

Personally, I really don’t mean to be selfish about the whole trade thing, but personally I hope Kobe stays on the West because if he comes here, that takes away from me and All-Star appearances.

That really does.

We already got rid of A.I. from the Eastern Conference and sent him to the West, so now it’s me and Dwyane Wade at the starting guards. If Kobe comes, who does that hurt? Come on Commissioner Stern, please? Whatever deal has Kobe coming East, just say, “No thank you.” Keep him on the West for me. I mean I’m an All-Star starter now, getting voted in by the fans. If you look at Kobe’s votes, he is leading the league in votes. That only hurts me if he comes here. Come on Kobe, I understand you want to come East but go ahead and stay on the West. Look out for your No. 1 fan.

When I said we were going to beat the Celtics on November 2, was that really a prediction? I don’t think I wanted to say, “Hey, we’re going to play Boston and we’re going to lose!” Agent Zero is coming in the building. I’m back. I know all you Boston fans are going to want to go to see Kevin Garnett, but y’all are going to see him 41 games. You’re only going to see me twice! Me and my handsome self. I got a fresh cut for the Boston and Indiana fans. Break out the Arenas jerseys. I’m coming to town.

I mean, when you look at that Celtics team, that’s a powerful team … on paper. Once those guys get going, you’re in trouble. You can’t guard that team … on paper. You still have to play the games. But with Kevin Garnett, the way he’s playing, you’ve seen some of the stats. He hit a triple-double once and he was one rebound and one assist away from a triple-double the game before that. So once them guys get their niche, they’re going to be a good team. But November 2 for them, that’s going to be truh-bull. Trouble.

I’m at about 92 percent. Maybe 90 percent. That’s good enough for me right now. Once you get your knee drained it takes a while for it to effectively heal. I’m ready to go. I’ve been icing it. I’ve been working out every day and going 100 percent every day.

We’re off to a good start. You never want to start off slow and for the last couple years we’ve been starting off our season slow and having to play catch-up. Which we’re comfortable doing, but now it’s like you don’t have a weaker Boston team or a weaker Orlando team or stuff like that. You have powerhouses now who are pretty darn good like your Torontos. Those are games where you used to say, “OK, we can make up ground on these games,” and those games just aren’t out there anymore.

Right now I’m just going to be getting ready for Game 1. It’s going to be exciting. Most likely I’m going to be staying up all night. I don’t know why I do it. You sit there going through moves in your head of what you’re going to do in the game and they never actually work out that way. But you do it anyway. Last year I was 2-for-11 on Opening Night and I was up till four in the morning the night before working on my ball handling. I don’t know why.

I just got to go out there and just play. That’s all it is. It’s just like going back to school, that’s how I look at it. A lot of people compare it to Christmas morning … No, it’s like going back to school. You’re so excited to see new faces and I look at the first day of the basketball season like everyone feels like this is going to be a new year for them. All the players that fans give up on and say that they don’t love the game anymore, they still love it on Opening Night. They get a fresh start to life again.

Mike Wise did another great job capturing the basketball side of my life coming into this league. I know what he does gets personal, but if it’s a good read, it’s a good read. I’m loving what he’s doing because it’s the truth. That’s what writing stories is about, no matter how deep you get. You don’t want to sugarcoat somebody’s life. You want to say, “This is what his life was and this is where he is now.” So anybody who wants to read it, you can find it here.

For the cartoon that everyone’s been in tune with and everyone’s been patiently waiting for information about, I’m telling you that on Saturday, November 10 (because you know, I have to give everybody a fair opportunity) at 9 a.m. Western and 12 o’clock Eastern, go to http://www.gazothepranksta.com and you’ll be able to submit your video just like you’re trying out for American Idol or any other one of them silly shows. It’s the same thing. They’re going to give you lines to read and you should give it all you have because you never know what you have in you. No matter what kind of voice you have, if you think it’s unique, you know I’m a funny guy so you might think your voice is whatever but to me, I might catch something I like from it. They’re going to have lines and they’re going to have catch phrases in there just to give me a variety of things that I can work with.

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We're back.
Ned Dishman/NBAE/Getty Images

In six months the hibachi grill hasn't been heated up. It takes a while for the grill to get back cooking again. It's like riding a bike. Once you start riding again, it's all good, but right now I'm rusty. I'm trying to get the rust off my bike chain.

Truthfully, I'm playing like terrible trash right now. I don't want to make an excuse, but the rims are broken in every arena I'm playing in.

That's why you call it preseason.

I'm wearing it on my leg for compression. It's not like the one A.I. has on his arm because A.I. wears that for fashion. I'm just trying to keep the blood circulating when I come off the court to the sideline. I just want to keep the blood flowing throughout my knee. I might wear it all year, it depends. Some of these arenas are cold. Can you please take the hockey teams out of basketball arenas? Basketball is not supposed to be played on ice. I'm sorry. I don't know if it's just me, but I hate going to arenas where it's 60 degrees outside and it's 50 degrees inside. That is not a sport. "Ice Basketball" is not a sport. The coldest arena is Phoenix, you'd be surprised. The city is hot so they keep the gym cold. Why have hockey inside a basketball arena?

Our Big Three is just trying to get back in sync with each other because we haven't played together since April 2. We're just trying to get our mojo back and get our confidence back so when we start off this season we can compete with that other Big Three that's out there trying to take our crown away from us. Caron is healthy. He just had a hand injury, that's easy to come back from.

I sat out last night because I drained my knee on Wednesday to get the fluid out. It hurt a little bit. They shot the needle in me to put the numbing medicine in and then they went and drained it and then they put some cortisone in to break up whatever is in there so I can get ready for the season. Then I missed the game in Philly because of my toe. It's a phobia I have. It's one of the phobias that gives me the Gilbertology or whatever you want to call it. When I was little, whenever I got out of the shower I never wanted to touch the floor because once you touch the floor your feet are dirty again. So in the shower I used to put my socks on already without drying them off. And I had to have a new pair of socks every day. Every time I take a pair of socks off, I have to put a new pair on. A brand new pair. Since I was little I always needed a brand new pair of socks. So I had no clothes, but I had a million pairs of socks. So anyway, what happened in Philly was I was starting to get athlete's foot from all the moisture that collected from putting my slippers on around the house as soon as I got out of the shower. It started aching me so I had to sit out and let them dry for two days. It's one of those weird, kind of nasty stories like, "Ugh, nobody cares about your toes," but it sat me out a game.

A fan sent a pair of his grandmother's underwear over to me when I was on the bench during a game the other day. He wanted me to sign them. It was a little awkward, but it was funny and cute -- kind of. In a weird way. That's something you're not expecting. You're expecting to sign a video game and you have a pair of panties on your lap. It was funny.

When I told Complex.com that the L.A., San Antonio, Dallas and Houston would be cities that I would like to play in if I opt out, they all come after D.C. If something did happen weird where Antawn left and we lost our team and it wasn't a good situation for me to come back, those are the four cities that I would want to play in.

I would want to go back home and play in L.A. I would want to go to San Antonio because they're a championship-caliber team -- same thing with Dallas. Houston is on the come-up with Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. Three out of the four are contenders right now. That was my reasoning. It wasn't like I said I want to play for the Hawks. You know, nothing against the Hawks but I'm talking about going to a championship team. I would have thrown Miami in there, but at the end of the day, if Shaq leaves that team breaks up.

You never know, but the four teams I mentioned have a solid base. If anything happens with the Wizards, that's my Plan B.

He has that big "STEVENSON" on his back. I've seen a lot of players that are getting their names on their backs. I guess it's a way of them letting people know what their names are when they're on the beach -- I don't know. DeShawn is adding the No. 2 on his back so it looks like a jersey. I guess when he's swimming or something, having fun in the pool, everybody will know who that is. It's not for me though, I'll stick with the tiger.

With the Gazo the Pranksta, the cartoon, for everybody who wants to try out to have their voice on the show my next blog post will have more details on it. I'm going to set that up for next week to have it up and running.

Right now, since Marc Ecko hasn't replied about the Barry Bonds ball to me I'm going to do something different about it. It looks like Coca-Cola has dropped out as one of the color ways for the GilIIZeros, so I'm going to do a 756 shoe, the Barry Bonds shoe. It's going to be the San Francisco colors and it's only coming out in the San Francisco Bay area. It's going to be a giveaway, it's not going to be sold. I'm going to buy probably like 8,000 pairs of shoes and when I come to town, I'm giving them away for free. This is still in the making. Please, for all the San Francisco people that want the 756 shoe to happen, write to adidas and let them know how excited you are for it so they can start making it. Free giveaway, baby. Free giveaway. Since Marc Ecko doesn't want to give the ball back to San Francisco, I'll give you 756 in a shoe.

I have a little problem. His name is Nick Young and he has a sidekick named Dominic McGuire. Our two little rookies. There's always a rookie who comes in and challenges for the goofball of the year. Well Nick's already won that. By far. This is one of the funniest kids I've ever met. The problem isn't that he's funny, but that he challenges me in pranks.

For the past week, he's been getting a taste of what I'm about. I made him bring me some McDonald's, I wanted a chicken sandwich at like 12 o'clock at night when we were in Philly. I actually didn't want the sandwich, I just wanted him out of his room. I went into his hotel room and messed with all his stuff.

Then before that during the Philadelphia game I took the keys from his car and shipped them back to Washington D.C. so my friend could take his car. We're going to paint it pink and it's going to say "I Love Dominic" on it. You know, his little sidekick.

We've been going back and forth, but for some reason he doesn't get it. He likes to play. On Thursday we had an off day and he went in my locker and took my iPod and a pair of my shoes. So I went over his place and I gave him one chance and one chance only to give me back my iPod and shoes and he didn't act fast enough so I got him good. Him and Dominic. Both. So they start threatening me like, "You'll see what happens, you'll see what happens. We're going to the store right now."

They went to the store and got paint ball guns. They got the paint ball guns, the masks, the gear, everything.

So I was sitting in my house playing Halo and I'm looking at my surveillance camera and I see Dominic and Nick creep up to my property all decked out. They parked across the street and they're running towards my house wearing masks and helmets. They came around the side of the house, jumped the wall, and came in through the garage. But by the time they did all that, I already was out of the house and jumped the other wall. They were in the house looking for me and I was across the street flattening their tires so when they decided to leave they'd be on flats. They looked around the house and couldn't find me so they came outside and saw me across the street flattening their tires. I called my friend and had him come pick me up and take me back to the house.

When they left the house, they stole my daddy's toaster! I like making toast! So I told them, Since you don't want to give my toaster back, it's war. He wanted his stuff back, I wanted my stuff back so I told them that we were going to have a paintball shootout.

We all went to the store like Sports Authority and bought all these paintball guns, like eight or nine new ones (because I already had three), then we bought the CO2 cartridges and like 12,000 paintballs and I even bought a couple paintball grenades.

We tried to make the teams fair.

It was Nick and Dominic and then Nick recruited last year's rookie, Andray Blatche. I thought Andray had enough of the pranks, but I guess he didn't. Andray brought his two friends, to make it five on their team.

My team was me, my friend John and three guys who were at my house hooking up stereo equipment.

So we finished buying everything and were in the store parking lot and Nick was mad that I had all the CO2 so he started to take some of mine. I was like, "Put the CO2 down or I'm going to shoot you with the paintball gun." But then he realizes I'm really going to shoot him with the paintball gun, and he puts it back. "You see what happens when you follow directions" But as I'm closing the trunk with the CO2 in it, he takes some and tries to jump in Dominic's car. I said, "Dominic, do not close that door." Nick is screaming, "Close the door Dominic! Close the door!" So Dominic left the door open. I go to Nick, "You have three seconds to put the CO2 back. One! Two!" He started to scramble to put it back and I got him anyway. I got him like six times. So he's laying in the car all mad saying, "I don't want to play no more."

So the war is still on.

I tell them that the shootout is planned for 12 o'clock midnight in my backyard because it's pure black back there. You can't see nothing. So I tell them, "12 o'clock, be in my backyard and we're going at it five on five."

We're putting all our stuff together at my place and they're putting their stuff together at their place but they are having trouble with it so I have my boy John and my other teammate Adam to go over to their place and have them help them fix their guns. And when John and Adam showed up at their place they tried to ambush them, thinking that I was going to come too. But I wasn't. So John and Adam had to run out of there.

So it's like 11:10 at night and all you here are paintball hitting the windows. POOM. POOM. POOM. POOM. POOM. They were already in the backyard. They showed up an hour early.

So we hurried up and put on all of our gear and snuck outside through some of the vents in the house.

And then we had a nice, good old paintball shootout in the dark.

They ran out of CO2 pretty quick because my team had most of it so one of Andray's friends yells, "Aww, it's not fair!" and they started to bail and jumped back over the wall. But one the kids was a little too heavy. His name is Jamar. That's 'Dray's cousin. Jamar couldn't get over the wall because Jamar has been eating one too many Twinkies.

So Jamar got stuck in my yard with the five of us. We gave him the chance to walk out like a man, or cry like a girl. He did both. He cried like a little girl while he was walking and running while we were shooting paintballs at him. I told him, "Hey, come in the lion's den, you're bound to get hit."

They said that he got hit so many times that he had trouble putting his clothes on the next day.

We played for about an hour and a half. I haven't had that much fun in a long time. What people don't realize is that when you're in the NBA, you lose stuff like that. You're not in there with kids, you're in there with grown men that have families. By having these young kids on the team, it's fun for me because I get to have that childhood that I lost. I lost it when I came into the NBA when I got picked No. 31 because I was so determined to be the best that I didn't get to actually have fun having fun, if that makes sense.

That's the moral of the story: I had fun.

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He's just like me, only a cartoon.
Illustration courtesy of mbox communications

This blog here is targeting my comedic and cartoon lovers.

I know how everybody heard I was creating a cartoon, well this is me officially saying that I'm creating a cartoon called Gazo the Pranksta.

Gazo stands for Gilbert Arenas (G-A) and Zero (Z-O).

It's about a group of kids who are the out crowd in high school. You know, there's more 'outs' then there are 'ins.' When you deal with high school, there is only 10 percent of the school that's popular. We're talking about the other 90 that nobody pays any attention to. That's who really runs the school.

The premise is five kids ' all different nationalities ' that come together and basically save the school. For the older people who are out of school, everything that went on in high school that you can remember and for all the kids who are in high school living it now, those are the topics that are going to be in the cartoon.

So if you've seen Superbad, yeah ' it's sort of like that. It's an adult cartoon that's in the same range as Family Guy and South Park. It's with those guys.

Anywhere from 6-14 years old, I don't think you want to watch. A station hasn't picked it up because I have to finish developing everything and start writing. I'm trying to get young writers from UCLA and USC that are ambitious, funny, clever and edgy.

The voiceovers are why I'm blogging.

I'm going to do a casting call for the voices of the five main characters. Five people around wherever you're coming from, wherever you live, I have a chance for you to be part of something that I think will be part of the future. And I call the future, 'Generation Zero.'

I don't really want to put an age limit on the voices, because you never know, you could have a 12-year old that has a deep voice or a squeaky, funny voice that you're looking for. So I don't want to put an age limit on the voice, but I want parents to know that it's an adult cartoon so they might be saying words that you do not accept as a parent or don't want your kids saying. I wanted to get that out there. So when I say I'm looking for voices and you think your son has a funny voice and you think I might choose him for one of the voices, I want you to know that there might be language you don't want your kid saying. I just don't want to cast somebody and get all the recording done and have parents freak out if there is a curse word in the script.

We were going to launch this earlier, but I've been watching a lot of cartoons lately and Gazo wasn't where I wanted it to be. I don't want to just put any product out there.

Check out my website, www.gazothepranksta.com, to see what the characters look like. For all the people who are trying to buy website URLs with similar names, don't bother. I already got them all locked down.

This is going to be the first interactive cartoon. If people out there don't know what interactive means, it means when you watch this cartoon you better pay attention because something that's in the cartoon might be a part of real life too. OK, they told me not to say this, but I got to. You know how like when you watch a cartoon and they give out a phone number and it's like, '555-5555?' In this cartoon there might be a real phone number that works. And somebody might pick up. So, if you see a website on there, that website will be created.

I had an animated introduction featuring the mother of one of the characters that I was going to put up on the site, but I still want to fine tune it. But I don't want people to see that part of the cartoon and think, 'That's it?' because sometimes peoples' first impression about something is their last. I don't want people to look at that snippet and be like, 'Well, this isn't funny,' before we get our new writers on board.

A group called mbox communications, we did some promotions together before and they actually run my website, Gilsarena, they just thought that with the creativity that I come with and the way I love watching cartoons that we should get together and try to launch a cartoon of our own. We worked on it the whole summer and worked with characters and stuff and I just thought it was a great opportunity, so that's where this concept came in at.

The way we're going to hopefully do it is launch each episode on the website every week like it is a regular TV show anyway, and we might buy a cable channel and put it on TV too, just so everybody starts to know what time it comes on every week until an actual station picks it up ' a station like Comedy Central, because it will fit their programming.

So each week, I'll either blog about it or you'll just start to know that on a certain day at a certain time there will be a new Gazo the Pranksta episode coming on.

I can tell you the first storyline, it's about a girl's 'Sweet 16.' A snobby little brat is having her little party and getting everything she wants and Gazo and his friends come and mess it up. I can't tell you anything else, that's why you got to watch.

It's been a hectic summer and I want to get this out before the season starts because once the season starts, that's when the writers will take the cartoon over and I focus on basketball while they focus on writing.

I know this concept can work. I play Halo all day and those kids, those video gamers, are the 'out crowd.' Any video gamer that thinks they're an 'in crowd,' no, you're an 'out crowd.' So I had the gamers send me everything they think about in high school and everything that happened to them in high school, just everything. I had about seven or eight kids from high schools all over and I got back some funny stuff.

Like I said, this is 'Generation Zero.' I don't want the popular, cocky kids. I don't want them on my cartoon, we're going to make fun of them on my cartoon. Down the line I want to have a part on the website where you can throw your ideas about high school out to me and if they're good enough, they'll be picked up and become a part of an episode.

NBA LIVE 08 is out. Go cop that. Me and Chris Paul have an unspoken rivalry right now because my man who I work out with in the summer and I are fighting for sales.

I don't want to tell you what game he's on so I don't want to give him free promotion.

I know I'm on NBA LIVE and I had commercials and he didn't have commercials. You need to go out and buy the game that has commercials with it, because those commercials are cool.

They ranked me a 91 in the game, but I didn't want to go into some board room and demand that they make me a 95 because I'm on the cover ' fine, I'm not going to lie, I did do that. But they told me it was too late. It's OK though. If you're playing as me and hit the Hot Spots button, the whole floor turns red. That means wherever you see red, that's where I can shoot. My range is the whole court.

I have a real big fan in Oakland who caught the 715 ball to beat Ruth. His name is Tom. Whenever we go West, he goes from city to city and travels to watch me play. He's been doing this since I came in the league. He goes to Portland, he goes to Seattle, Golden State, Lakers, Clippers ' he just drives and goes to all of them. Well Tom's brother caught the 715 ball. He said he would give me that ball for free so I could tell Marc Ecko that he can switch out No. 715 for No. 756 and he can mark up No. 715 or whatever he wants to do with that ball, as long as he gives me the 756 ball.

Tom just wants all 20 pairs of the GilIIZero's actually. So I have some fans out there joining the cause.

I apologize to Marc Ecko for making the offer the way I did, but that's the only way to get stuff across to people is if you just burst out sometimes. Marc Ecko, I would really love the opportunity to sit down and negotiate with you about this ball and see if I can convince you to give it to me without taking it to the Hall of Fame marked.

Something like 500 websites are calling me a cheater, and they don't know what cheating is.

Let's break down the word 'cheating' in video games. Then I'm going to break down glitches and then just great fans.

Cheating:

In Halo 2 what cheating was, it was called 'modding.' That means you do a modification to your XBox, you create your own Halo 2, you get online and then you just destroy everybody so you can get your rank up. But you didn't really get your rank up because Bungie kicks you off, so you got your friends' ranks up. Anybody who got in a party with the 'modder' had their ranks up because the 'modder' is going to win every game.

Or, you can do what everybody else has been doing to cheat: 'stand-bying.' What 'stand-bying' is involves one of these little computer guys is sitting there slowing down everybody else's modems and putting you to blue screen or black screen (when you go to blue screen or black screen you can't see anything that's happening in the game and you think there's a delay in the game) and in the mean time they're going around killing you.

Or, they'll just 'lag' you out of a game. Somehow they just intercept your connection and 'lag' you out. That's cheating.

For basketball video games, cheating is when somebody goes to a bookstore and buys a book on cheat codes and they put the little cheat codes in and all of the sudden they can steal every pass and make every shot and do all that stuff.

For football video games, I don't know what cheating is because I don't play them.

Glitches:

There are glitches in Halo. You can super bounce and you can double shot.

In basketball video games, back in 2005 there was some glitch where you could put a full-court press on and you set right in front of the guy who was taking the ball out of bounds and every time he tried to make the pass, it got stolen. The team inbounding the ball couldn't even get past half court. It's called a glitch.

As for a glitch in football video games, I don't know because I don't play.

The glitch in Halo 3 isn't a real glitch like in the basketball game, it's a glitch in the system.

Good fans:

There's this thing called experience points. You get experience points for winning games. Before anybody knew about winning social games, they played ranked games. You play ranked games to get your medals up. Then one day I came across a guy who had an eagle by his Halo profile and he only had 50 ranked games. I was like, 'Wait I minute, I have 178 ranked games, I don't have an eagle!'

But this guy had 550 social games won, so I'm like, 'What the hell is a social game?'

So I go to him, 'I'll give you a jersey if you tell me what you're doing.'

He said 'OK' and he explained it to me. He said, 'You play social games and you get the points too.'

So I said, 'Social games are matched?'

And he said, 'No, social games are not matched.'

'So you can win a social game, which is not ranked, and get the points still?'

'Yeah. What I do is just play two-on-two with my friends and they just lose to me and it gets my experience points up.'

'That's it?'

'Yeah.'

'Allllllllllllll right!'

So I play Halo with a whole bunch of kids online and my one friend said that if I really wanted the eagle that he would lose all the games to me, because he didn't really care.

He said, 'I don't care about experience points because at the end of the day, I'm still good.'

So how is that cheating? I still don't understand it.

So for all the Halo people who don't understand what I'm talking about, this is just like if you were playing Madden online and you find a kid you can beat down on and you keep sending him challenges so you can get wins. It's the same thing. Or in basketball games, if you're playing somebody online and beat him by 30 points and he says, 'Rematch?' and you say, 'OK!' you already know you can beat him, so you play him again just so you can get your points up and your rank up. That's all that is.

So let me explain this eagle thing I wanted. It's an honor. It's a little patch that goes onto a shirt. It has nothing to do with your skill level. Whatever your skill level is ' 32 or 50 or five ' that's what you are. Your experience points are just about the games you won.

The guy who taught me the trick played only like 50 ranked games and 550 social games. I have a level 42 for ranked games. I have to play ranked games against ranked people to get better. Nobody is going to help me win there, because it's a ranked game and nobody wants to lose a ranked game.

But a social game doesn't affect your rank.

So when you have a major, a double major or a triple major or a burger dot (or whatever they call that eagle thing), all it is is for show. So when I go into a match and my opponent sees that eagle, they'll be like, 'Dang, you play a lot.'

That's all that means.

They're not going to say, 'Dang, you're good!' They're going to say, 'Dang, you play a lot.'

At the end of the day they look at your rank to see how good you are. Your major is just for show. So if you have an eagle and only have won like 10 ranked games, they're going to be like, 'Man, you're garbage.'

They're calling me a cheater for somebody giving me wins all day but they should be calling him the cheater for disgracing the integrity of the game. I didn't make him do it, I didn't ask for it.

There's been thousands of kids who have lost to me. Most of the time it was because of my talent, the other ones were because I said I'd give them a jersey!

Here's another example. If you beat Halo you can collect these skulls. And if you get all 13 skulls you get a special helmet and outfit for your guy. So for the first couple days, everybody was beating the game but nobody was getting the special helmet because they couldn't find the 13th skull.

One kid cracked it.

Only one person cracked it. That one person told somebody else, who told somebody else, who told somebody else and then what happened was the one person who knew how to get the skull called up a group of friends, invited them to join his party and told them that they can play with him and that he'd go through all the boards and find all the skulls and do all the work and since they'll all be joining in with him, they'll get the achievement points too.

So he went through all the boards and it only took him like five or six hours because he already knew how to do it, and everybody in his party got the special helmet and didn't do anything for it.

If that's not cheating, then what my fan did for me shouldn't be cheating either. We're not cheating anybody. We're not slowing down somebody else's modem or doing something else to beat them.

This was just my fan saying, 'Hey, I want you to have the eagle. I'll give you the eagle by losing games to you.'

And come on people, if I found out about it and did it, there has to be other people out there doing it too. I can't help it if Agent Arenas is a popular guy online and gets offers like that.

Come on, there are people out there that have double shot modded controllers, they have modded Xboxes, they have this new thing (and I'm not even sure how you do it) where you put a rubber band around your controller handles so it will go only right and if it goes right the whole time something happens where the game won't cut off and you keep winning or something like that.

Who is finding out about this stuff? Who is sitting there putting rubber bands on their controllers?

At least I'm there playing the game. I play Halo some days for 14 hours. If I play that much, obviously I know how to play. A guy online told me how he got his experience points up and I said, 'OK, I want that too.'

I had already won 216 games legitimately when I heard about this glitch. It's not like I'm not playing all the time.

I mean, I've sponsored Final Boss for the last couple years and they're the best team in Halo. I'm too proud to jump in a game with them to help me get my rank up. If I really wanted to win that bad, all I would have to do is jump in a game with Final Boss when they go up against all of the top kids in the game and just sit there, eat my cereal and watch as they win every game and get my rank up.

How hard is that? That's not hard. But I didn't do it.

This is like in Mario Brothers where if you jumped on a shell and hit it against the stairs and as long as you time it right, you keep getting the 1 UP and have infinity lives. Same thing with Contra. You do the up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right and now you have the infinity ammo and infinity lives. That's cheating. But if I'm playing Streetfighter, and he lets me win, why is that considered cheating?

You should be mad at that kid for giving me the victory. Don't be mad at me for accepting the victory.

What should I be like, 'I know you lost, but I'm not going to take this win, sorry.'

Last year when I played NBA LIVE online and was 117-15. Sure, 80 of the wins were against my friend, but hey, he's easy. It wasn't about skills, it was for show. When somebody wanted to play me, they would see my 117-15 record and automatically think I was good (which I was), but it was the point that it intimidated them.

The same thing with the eagle thing in Halo 3. If you see that eagle on your screen when you're going to play me, you're automatically going to think I'm good.

All that happened was that I went from a single major to a double major because he said he'd lose 100 games to me.

Know what was funny, I got all my Halo friends together and we challenged all the kids that were telling me I was sorry, and that I suck and that I'm a cheater and we played a game against them. My team was called the 'Bad Guys' because apparently I'm the bad guy for accepting wins from somebody. So we played my haters last night and they got destroyed. Oh man, they got destroyed.

Half the kids, they're not even mad. At first I got so many messages that were angry. One kid was like, 'You're a disgrace to Halo.' He said, 'People like you make it hard for people like us to get better because we sit here for six hours a day playing this to get better.' I was like, 'That sounds fun. I don't mean to be the bad guy here, but, I play 14 hours a day. Regularly. I know the rules and what cheating is. What I'm doing is not cheating.'

At the end of the day I'm still ranked in the top 30 in the world, even without the experience. Go check the leaderboard. That's all my skill. The leaderboard doesn't have anything to do with experience points, it just has to do with experience. Microsoft must have sold millions of copies of Halo and I'm still ranked No. 30 in the world. My swag is phenomenal right now, remember that. Like Kanye said, 'You can't tell tell me nothing, riiighhht.' To my favorite haters -- Biggs V2 and Hellhogace -- I'm ranked even without the so-called 'cheating.'

And MC187, you get the bonus prize. This is your five days of fame. PTI picked it up and now I'm mentioning you in my blog. This is the only way you're going to get famous because it's not going to be through Halo. I looked at your rank, you aren't very good. You might not be skilled at the game, but I know what your skill is -- looking at everybody else's accounts to see who's cheating. So keep it up baby, I'm rooting for you.

One more thing, a big thanks to Aircalbev for supporting me in this time of tragedy on the Bungie message board of hatred towards Agent Arenas. I also want to give a shout out to some of my fallen solidiers - Cashis Clayis and Baby Jesus - for helping through these turbulent times and I would like to thank God for giving me the man power and the heart and mind to stay up and keep playing Halo to the best of my ability. Now I got to do the "Marion Jones" thing: Sorry to all my friends and family who believed in me. I disgraced my Halo friends' names.

LOL. I'm a beast in Halo 3.

P.S. I am teaching "cheating" lessons at 12 midnight, every night on how to be a professional cheater on Halo. I'm just kidding, I shouldn't have said that,.

It was my first game since April you know, but if Fantasy Basketball was started right now I'd probably be in the top five because I had four steals, four assists, three rebounds and one turnover in 20 minutes. But for real, I did all right for my first game out there. I was just trying to get a rhythm. I moved really well, I wasn't dragging my leg. I was running and you know, playing up and down. That was a great 20 minutes for me. The shot wasn't falling. I ended up 2-for-11 and I was 1-for-8 starting off the game but I was just trying to get a rhythm and trying to get back to what I do. I took quick shots, some good ones, some bad ones, but all in all its about trying to hurry up and catch your rhythm before the season starts so you have to do some things that you normally don't do just to get a feel for it.

For the Cleveland Cavs fans who watched it, we're a thorn. That's our rivalry. Those are two teams that have that blood. It's not that bad blood where you want to fight them every time, it's that competitive blood where both teams think they're better than each other and you want to win. You want to win in the preseason and you want to win in the regular season. At the end of the day, we know who we want to face off against in the playoffs: Cleveland.

You want to play the exciting teams that have the same type of talent and the same type of up-and-downess (I don't even know if that's a word). You want a team that plays at the same pace as you. If you're an up-and-down team you don't want to play against a team like Chicago and grind it out. That's the worst. Using a Marbury phrase, 'great kudos' to Chigago, but that's the one team you don't want to play in the first round. If you play them in the first round, most likely you aren't going to get further then the second round because they will beat you up so bad that you will be tired and it will take everything out of you just to beat them that series.

I remember them in 2004-05 when we had to play against them. It took all of our energy out to beat them and when we got to the second round against Miami we didn't have anything. That's the one team that you can say that you don't want to face in the playoffs and that's Chicago. They're a brutal team and they'll bang you, they'll press you full court, 24/7 for seven games.

I know everybody by now heard the bad news about Etan. It's one of those things where you're glad the NBA has stepped up and given these tests in the preseason every year. I used to think it was pointless to run on a treadmill and be monitored. I mean, I've been working out the whole summer and now you want me to run on a treadmill and put sticky things all over me and have me run for five minutes? But now that you see the results of what the tests can catch you're like, 'Oh my God, this is serious.'

For the bigger guys in this league; make sure you test up. Etan is one of the healthiest guys I've known in my career. He takes care of his body, he eats right ' I've never seen him eat anything bad. I always ask him what he eats whenever I'm on a diet because I only see him eating fruits and vegetables and he takes all the healthy food from the plane.

So when a guy that is this healthy has a problem out of nowhere, it shows you that you have to check on your bodies.

He had the surgery yesterday, they said it went well. You just have to give your utmost thoughts and prayers to his family. This is something where if it wouldn't have got caught, it could be his life in jeopardy. It could have been like Len Bias or it could have been like Jason Collier.

My words to him were, 'You don't need to think negative thoughts. Don't worry about basketball right now. You're happy. You're alive. Enjoy your kids. You're going to live a regular life and once you're feeling healthy enough, that's when you start playing basketball again.'

This is kind of a feel-good story, in a sense. I had a friend in high school, named Eddie. We called him 'chicken wing' because he was skinnier than Tayshaun Prince before he came into the NBA.

There was five of us and we had our own little team when we were 14-years old. Well Eddie used to always say that he could dunk. Every time we'd show up to the park and he'd already be there he'd be like, 'Oh man, I dunked it today! I dunked it today!' And we were like, 'Yeahhhh, rigggghhhht.'

This used to go on for years. It started when we were 14 but then we were sophomores, juniors, seniors and none of those years he could dunk the ball.

So when I went off to college and the summer before my freshman year, I got a phone call. My friend was on the other line and he's like, 'Yo, Eddie passed away.' And I was like, 'What?! What happened?'

And he started laughing.

So I was like, 'What the hell are you laughing for?'

He goes, 'It's funny, but it's not funny ''

'OK, can you explain why the hell you're laughing?!'

He was like, 'Well we were playing five-on-five ''

'All right ''

'And Eddie went up and dunked it and he got so excited that he collapsed.'

And you know what? I totally forgot about him dying and I was like, 'Eddie dunked?! You got to be kidding me. He really dunked it?!'

They said he really dunked it and he got so happy he finally dunked in front of his friends that he passed away. He died right there on the court we grew up on.

For a kid who plays basketball, if I had to pass away, that would be the way I would want to pass away -- like if I won the championship and I was so happy that I passed out right there.

That's a memory that I can always live with.

He didn't pass away from a gun shot or this or that. He passed away doing something he loved. It wasn't a feel bad story when I first heard. I was so excited that he finally proved us wrong and he dunked, and he was so happy that he finally proved us wrong and he dunked that he passed away from it.

His favorite player was Allen Iverson so we buried him with an Allen Iverson jersey and No. 3 was actually going to be my number going into college, but it was already taken so I had to go with zero.

---

One of my superfans, Doug Wallis Jr., was the first person in the world to own NBA LIVE 08.
David Dow/NBAE/Getty Images

This is part two of the Gil Extravaganza. Last week I was in New York with my shoes, this week I'm in the Big Apple with my video game. Actually this started on Wednesday in D.C. I had to wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning. But see, we have to rewind back even before that because it's important to the story. On Tuesday, Halo 3 came out. So I was playing at 12:15 in the afternoon when I got back home from the gym on Tuesday until 4:30 in the morning on Wednesday. Sixteen hours straight of just Halo 3. Then I went to sleep and had to wake up at 6:00 a.m. to go do a two part commercial shoot for the Wizards. After that I had to come up to New York to do a commercial for ESPN with Dwight Howard, Deron Williams, Mike Breen and Bill Walton.

They wanted me there a 5:00 p.m. and just like normal, I missed my flight. So I got there at 6:00. So I'm thinking, 'Oh, man. I'm late again?!' And when I get there they're like, 'Oh, no, you're not late.' They were already shooting a commercial with Chris Bosh, so I'm like, 'Am I in the commercial with Chris Bosh?'

'Oh, no, you're in the last one.'

'OK, when does the last one start?'

'10 o'clock.'

'Man, let me go to the trailer.'

So I go the trailer and Deron Williams is in there sleeping. He got woken up. They woke him up and gave him his shirt to wear so he could get ready despite the fact that he got there at 11 in the morning and this was 10 at night. He was like, 'Man, I could have gone back to my hotel!' But once I got there and starting loosening everybody up, we just had a blast. I was out of there by 12:15.

We had a good time talking about Stephon Marbury's interview again, because I didn't know he came out with a Part 2 and a Part 3, talking about, 'They tell me I'm crazzzzzy!' Yeah, you know, so no comment on that.

So we did the commercial and I had a great time and I was trying to go to something that DJ Clue was throwing with Budweiser and King Magazine and I just couldn't go because I know I had to be at the NBA Store early in the morning and once I get sleepy, I get cranky and everything gets dry and I don't have the same kind of energy I should so I decided to just stay in the room.

Yesterday I did everything from BET to SpikeTV to (of course) ESPN to Fantasy Basketball with Matthew Berry. So I was all over the world in the Big Apple. I had a lot of fun and even won two games of NBA LIVE 08 on the Wii.

I had a copy of the game, but I don't any more. I have to wait until October 2nd now just like everybody else. I actually gave my copy out to a lucky fan that was waiting since 9:00 a.m. at the NBA Store for me to show up at 3:00 p.m. I was going to give out three copies, but I had such good fans that I think I gave out about six or seven. So those six or seven kids have it before me, because I gave my copy out. Plus I gave out 100 vouchers to get the game for free on October 2nd when it is officially released.

I used to complain about it two years ago that I couldn't find a Wizards jersey of mine, this and that. 'How come I can't find my Wizards jersey, I'm averaging 25 points!' And now I see them everywhere. I remember one day I was coming from the track and it was cold outside. We were going through Howard University and I saw a kid in a black Arenas jersey and I'm like, 'It's cold outside and he's wearing that? I got a fan!' I got a little smile on my face. I had the actual Joker, Jack Nicholson smile on that one.

I'm just so excited that people are digging me and supporting what I'm doing.

I'm putting all the workouts and everything I did all summer into one day so all the media can come check out and see that I'm healthy. I'm not sure what the full schedule will be. I know its going to have bike riding, I know it's going to have my track workout with the parachutes behind me for resistance, if we can get the pool I'll do the pool workout, I might break out the 1,500 makes early in the morning and then the full basketball workout at night. Plus the weight lifting and the bleacher workout.

Physically I'm ready and mentally I'm there because I've put myself in situations where I can put myself in that mind frame again. Meaning that whenever we play pickup games, I don't wear shorts and a jersey, I wear a sweat suit. I wear the heavy, wool sweat suit to simulate the fourth quarter feel of exhaustion and I go games where I decide I'm only going to shoot the game winner, so it makes me think of the game winner. I didn't get to think about shooting 'quality shots' for so long that I had to get my mind back to where it was before I was injured.

Oh man, everybody is jumping on this Celtics band wagon. You know what? I was going to go prediction-free for the whole year, but I guess I'm going to break that now.

Now, if anybody remembers back when I got drafted, I got a report back that the reason I dropped so far in the draft was that Jim O'Brien of the Celtics said that I was too immature and that I wasn't ready for the NBA. What really happened was that I had an Achilles injury and I went back to L.A. to go get it healed when I was supposed to have a two-day workout in Boston with O'Brien. He didn't like that. So word came back to me that he was trashing me and it put this knife through my chest about the Boston Celtics.

Back in the day when I would day dream I thought that if I could score 100 points against any team it would be the Boston Celtics. Now, I knew it would never happen, but if I could do one thing in the NBA it would be to score 100 against Boston. So anyway, since everybody is back on the Boston bandwagon it brought back old memories. So listen here. On November 2nd, we're going to go into that building, we're opening up Boston. Right now I'm telling the Boston fans: You guys are going to lose. It's not going to be a victory for Boston. You might as well just cheer for me, because Boston isn't winning in Boston for the season opener. I'm sorry.

I normally don't get into conversations like this, but this kind of hit a nerve in my body as an athlete. This whole Marc Ecko buying the Barry Bonds ball to put an asterisk over it:

I just think it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

Who are you as a person to take away somebody's legacy because you don't like him as a person? Forget that he is Barry Bonds and forget his records. He was 'alleged' of doing steroids. This is America, just because you're 'alleged' of doing something doesn't mean he actually did it and until he is proven guilty, you shouldn't have the right to be the judge and jury.

Just because you have the money don't go buying up people's history to destroy it. If you're going to get Barry Bonds' ball, why don't you go get Mark McGwire's homerun balls that got put into the Hall of Fame and Sammy Sosa's corked bat too?

He was 'alleged' of doing steroids. I don't think as a fan of sports that you have the right to taint this man's legacy.

This man has a kid. When his kid grows up he's going to hate you as a person because you decided to be this super, superhero to go put an asterisk sign over his dad's legacy.

I just felt appalled by it because, what if somebody decides to ban the hyperbaric chambers tomorrow? Everybody knows that I used the hyperbaric tent last year and I scored 60 points against the Lakers during the season I was using the tent. Now, the Hall of Fame has my shoes from that game. What if somebody decides to take my shoes and put an asterisk sign on them now?

I think it's just drawing graffiti on somebody else's legacy. Before you go and destroy another man's career, I'd rather buy the ball back from you and give it to somebody who really, truly wants the ball for what it is.

So, Marc Ecko, I want the ball to give it to a real fan. As a human, you should be ashamed of yourself for outbidding somebody just to do wrong to somebody's property.

If people don't understand what I'm talking about, this is the easiest way I can explain it. Anybody out there that has ever taken Creatine, that's a popular substance, if they all of the sudden consider Creatine to be a steroid that means all you guys that took it are dirty so if you ever do anything in life, you're tainted. Anything you do in life you're going to have somebody like Marc Ecko wanting to buy whatever you do in life to put an asterisk sign by it. So if you get a promotion and he decides he wants this guy fired because he did Creatine back in 2001, that's how you should feel.

Just because he is one of the most hated guys in the world because of 'allegedly' doing steroids, I don't think you should take away his legacy.

The day he broke the record, he wasn't on steroids. That's how I look at it. People say that he's dirty, but the last time I checked anything out I saw that corked bats, spitting on balls, Vaseline on balls and stealing signals, that's all cheating too.

If they're doing steroids, I mean there have been plenty of players who I thought have done steroids, but I'm not going to buy their stuff up just to put an asterisk on it. I think it's giving the wrong idea to people. The fans that voted for the asterisk, I think they're representing sports wrong because at the time that he broke these records, he wasn't on steroids.

If you want to buy some records that were broken by somebody who was accused of steroids and admitted to using steroids, go buy Arnold Schwarzenegger's. Go buy back his trophies and medals and put asterisks on them. That's a man who actually admitted to using steroids.

I just think it's wrong. In sports, what people don't realize is, you're trying to do everything you can to get that extra advantage. By me using the hyperbaric chamber, I'm using it as an advantage. If they ban it tomorrow, will people be looking at me as a dirty player?

I'm not saying steroids are good or bad here. I mean, I think it's a cowardly way to enhance your performance don't get me wrong, but my issue is that if the guy hasn't been proven guilty, you shouldn't taint him.

You're not Superman. You can't go around trying to save the world from this ball. Give me a break. What if I buy your company and throw it in the trash because I say it's tainted? How stupid would you feel?

And for people who still aren't feeling me; What if a kid comes and graffiti's your house. How would you feel?

You worked your butt off to live in the place you live in and some not-so-smart people come and graffiti your house. How would you feel? That's what I feel about that ball. You're just tagging it up.

Let a fan, somebody who appreciates the game still, no matter what, accept that ball.

I'll buy the ball from you Ecko for $800,000. If Barry Bonds is found guilty, I'll give it back to you. I'm not going to let you go around like some little superhero.

I'll put it in my hall of fame. The Gilbert Hall of Fame for Athletes no matter what you did.

I know I got off on a little tangent, but Marc, who are you to discredit Barry Bonds' legacy? He is a man first before being a seven-time MVP. Marc, what if someone tried to take away what you did in this world as a fashion pioneer? How would that make you feel as a man?

I would love to buy the ball away from you before you destroy history. I'm a collector of basketball jerseys and I would be honored to have the 756 ball in my personal hall of fame and I know there are real fans out there who both are and aren't Barry Bonds supporters who don't want to see history getting marked up.

I'm not defending steroids users by any means. I defending sports in history.

---

In honor of the Saints, I might have to break out these black and gold beauties on February 25 in New Orleans.
Naim Hasan/adidas

I know this is what a lot of people have been waiting for. For all the shoeheads out there, allow me to introduce you to the adidas GilIIZero. I was calling them the Gil 20s, because that's how it's pronounced, but when you go to buy them in the store (which I know you will) it will say GilIIZero on the box. I just wanted to clear that up so you don't get confused and think Boyz II Men has a shoe or something.

There are going to be 20 different versions of my shoe next year. Most of them are limited editions. I have 18 different color ways and then two 'inline' versions, you know, that meet all the uniform standards of David Stern and the NBA.

GilIIZero Release Dates
1	Scores for Schools	Foundation Kickoff Event
That's my foundation that I have in D.C. I give $100 for every point I score at home.
2	Cust0mize	vs. Warriors	Nov. 23, 2007
B Diddy will like these.
3	Agent Zero	vs. Cavs	Dec. 5, 2007
When LeBron comes to town, my feet will be ready.
4	Vote for Gilbert	vs. Suns	Dec. 7, 2007
That's for Vitamin Water. It's a whole little campaign we're doing.
5	NBA LIVE 08	@ Heat	Dec. 13, 2007
This is my first away shoe. Coming out right in time for the holidays. I might push the release date up though because the game comes out on October 2.
6	DC Football	vs. Heat	Dec. 29, 2007
That shoe is coming out on a Saturday, and it's inspired by the Redskins. That's for all the Redskins fans because they play the Cowboys on the following day, a Sunday.
7	Coke Zero	@ Hawks	Jan. 11, 2008
Visit Coke Rewards for details.
8	Halo	@ Nuggets	Feb. 8, 2008
The game is coming out on September 25, so maybe we'll move this release date up.
9	Black President	@ Suns	Feb. 10, 2008
I got 54 against Steve Nash last year, so you know I'm going to come out with a shoe in Phoenix.
10	Looney Tunes - BUGS	@ Warriors	Feb. 11, 2008
This is coming out only in kids sizes. So all infants and boys under the age of 10, this is for you. This one is for my son.
11	Looney Tunes - TWEETY	@ Clippers	Feb. 13, 2008
This one is also only in kids sizes and is for my daughter and other little girls.
12	SLAM Magazine	@ Knicks	Feb. 19, 2008
New York Citaayyy.
13	THREEZERO	@ Rockets	Feb. 26, 2008
This is a company that's in Asia that makes toys. So they're going to have a a 24" vinyl figure toy of me with the shoe and it's going to be released in China. So this shoe is going to come out in Houston vs. Yao.
14	Cuba	@ Heat	Mar. 21, 2008
I know a lot of people don't know, but I'm mixed with a little bit of Cuban, so this is for all the Cubanos. I'll also wear it in Chicago, because there are a lot of Cubans in Chicago. I don't know how, but trust me, there are.
15	Channel Zero	@ Blazers	Mar. 25, 2008
This is the 'Don't watch me, watch TV' shoe. Greg Oden is out, so Portland might get that taken away from them. They might get it taken away, I'm not sure. Portland fans, that's a question mark. I'm sorry. It's a nice-looking shoe too. I might have to switch it. That might become Denver with A.I. and Carmelo. We'll see.
16	Gilwood	@ Lakers	Mar. 30, 2008
This is the first time I'm going back to L.A. since that 60-pointer. So those colors are the Lakers colors.
17	UNDRCRWN	vs. Heat	April 4, 2008
Wow, four releases against the Heat. Damn. Somebody likes the Heat at adidas. Check out UNDRCRWN's home page.
18	Hibachi	???	???
This is the Benihana collab. Time for you all to decide. Should I drop this shoe in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Memphis, Orlando or Philadelphia? Tell me what city should get it.

This was a concept that adidas came up with last spring after I wore a special edition shoe on a West Coast trip when I hit the game winner against Seattle. Everybody was asking me like, 'Where did you get those from?' I was like, 'Yeah, they're mine. They're a one-of-one. They're a special edition that I just have. They're not out in stores.' So I gave that pair to one of the ball kids in L.A. at the Clippers game, and that was the end of that.

I told adidas how everybody went crazy for that special pair and so we came up with the idea: 'What if we came up with the GilIIZero, where I have 20 different versions of my next shoe? You know, have them come out in different cities, have all different release dates. It's never been done before. It will be something different and let's see how people respond to it.'

Then we started to play with the idea more and we're like, 'OK, we'll make the NBA LIVE 08 and the SLAM shoes more rare than the Looney Tunes versions for the kids ' The THREEZERO shoe will be very limited ' anywhere from 200-300 pairs''

It's going to be great. I think people are going to like the colors, but they're also going to like the shoe. This is more of a casual, kicking it shoe but you can also play basketball in it, because I'm going to be doing it.

I don't want to kill the designer that was in charge of the shoe when this process started, because I understand it's difficult, but you know me, I'm an honest person so I'm going to tell you the truth of how it went down.

When they first showed me the shoe, we were in a room at a hotel, and they came out with the shoe. It was supposed to be a team shoe, that's why the shoe was actually called the 'TS Lightswitch Gil' (TS stands for 'Team Signature') but we switched it to GilIIZero. It was supposed to be a team shoe because we're doing a whole brotherhood campaign, so they wanted us all in the same shoe. Being a young player, I was like, 'I can understand what you guys are doing, but Kevin Garnett has already had nine signature shoes. T-Mac had nine signature shoes. I'm just now getting on the scene. Can I get my own shoe? Can I get the Gil Zero, part two?'

I don't want to be hooked up in a team shoe. For me, as a shoe kid, I'm like team shoes don't sell. To be honest. They sell to teams, but for a kid on the street, they don't want to wear something a whole UCLA or Oregon or Arizona team is wearing. Nobody wants to wear that just in different colors. So when they showed me the shoe, they told me, 'The other four players loved this shoe and this is a great shoe, the buyers are buying it.' And I'm sitting there looking at the shoe like, 'I hope you guys aren't serious. Because I'm not going to wear this shoe.' If you can picture this shoe, it looked like a newer shell toe mixed in with a little basketball and a little bit of ballerina in the front. So I looked at the shoe and I straight killed it. I killed it so much I think I made everybody uncomfortable. How do I go from the Gil Zero to this? That was my whole argument. Nobody is going to wear this shoe.

So at All-Star weekend I was actually downstairs in the lobby of my hotel with the prototype of the shoe and going up to fans and asking, 'Would you buy this shoe? Would you buy this shoe?' There were a lot of people that went, 'Eww, no. I hope you're not wearing that in the All-Star game.' I was like, 'No, I'm not going to wear this. I just wanted to get your opinion.' Point proven.

So through all that process of tearing down and getting rid of and complaining and complaining, this is what we have. Now we have the Lamborghini of shoes. Not to say Hondas are bad, but we have the Lamborghini of shoes now. I think everybody is going to dig this shoe.

Designing shoes is very hard because for some reason, as an athlete, you never meet the designer until the shoe is already made. Then you have to complain about the things you don't like. So right now, I'm complaining about my shoe for next year. We already had that meeting because they said, 'Well, if we get him early and then he kills us again, we have time.'

I'm a trend setter, people. I don't want other shoe companies to try to jack my style now. My swag is too phenomenal. If any other basketball player out there wants to compete with my shoes, go ahead, we can have a 50 and Kanye right here. We can start it up, baby. I'll be the bad guy. We can have a sneaker war.

If you think about it, there are probably about 20-25 signature player shoes in the NBA that come out each season. Next year, I'm going to have 20 just by myself! So when all those other ugly shoes come out, you know that a new GilIIZero will be on its way shortly.

Next week is my NBA LIVE 08 blog post. I'll be in New York next week for my EA Sports press conference. I'll blog from New York.

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That's my "get me a sub" face.
Rocky Widner/NBAE/Getty Images

I mentioned this to Dime, but here is the whole story. What was funny was Calvin used to come to me after we played Miami and was like, 'Man, by minute, you scored the most points on GP. Do you have a problem with GP?' And so I told him how I don't have a problem with him but when I was a rookie I just got a starting position and we were playing the Sonics and you bring up the ball and he gives you that little smirk, like the 'What do you belong on the court for?' smirk, so it's intimidating. You know, he's The Glove. So all that comes together and he starts pushing up and you get nervous with the ball and now you're on the other end and you have to stick him on defense and you're thinking, 'I'm stronger than him,' and he's posting you up and then he takes on the center because there's a switch and he posts the center up and still scores easy and you're like, 'Oh shoot, what the hell is this?' So he scored like 16 of the Sonics 20 points in the first quarter. I've never been so happy to get subbed out of a game. It was the only game ever where a coach subbed me out and I ran to the bench happy.

So coach subbed me out, right, and I'm like, 'Woooo. Oh my God.' Bobby Sura goes in for me and I'm like, 'Good luck Bobby, that man is on FIRE.' So, I'm sitting there and as soon as Bobby gets subbed in he gets subbed back out and I'm thinking, 'Yo, coach, sub me back in!' The Sonics put Randy Livingston in for Payton and I'm thinking, 'Coach! Coach! I think I can play against him!' But no, he matched me up with GP again when GP came in during the second half. So, during a free throw we were both standing next to each other at half court and he was like, 'You're lucky I'm no A.I. type of player or I'd have scored 50 on you in the first half!' And I'm thinking in my mind, 'You're damn right! You aren't lying.'

So from that day on, every time he got floor I went at him just because of that. You know, I couldn't talk trash to him, you can't talk trash to him. There was nothing I had to say, I just had to try to score as many points as I could on him to try to make him try to feel the way he made me feel that day. Now I go after the rookies whenever I get the chance just because of what GP did to me. You know, I used to fear him. Whenever I was working out I was thinking, 'This is to get ready for GP. I got to see GP four times, GP four times'' And then when he went to Milwaukee I was like, 'Yes! Only GP two times, GP two times''

I know everybody thinks life is perfect for an NBA player, but people get in arguments and I do too. Here's the real story guys, of why I missed the EA Sports event in Canada.

It started out real simple. My girlfriend had to drive me to practice in the morning to go work out and I was looking in the car and I guess my daughter dragged sticks and rocks from outside and there was yogurt and stuff all on the floor in the backseat. So I'm thinking to myself, 'Man, this car is filthy!' But instead of thinking it to myself, it slipped out and I said it out loud.

So now the cat was out of the bag and I was like, 'Are you ever going to clean the car?' And just like a woman with kids is going to do, she hit me with, 'I take care of the kids all day, and I don't have time to do this, and do that, and do this and do that.' So I'm like, 'OK, but this is my dad's car and my dad keeps his car clean''

It was about her registering her car, because she didn't register her car. It's been sitting in the garage for two months with no tags. So I'm like, 'If you register your car, then I can get my dad's car back and my dad's car would be spotless and there would be no problem because you could have a party in your car if you want to. If you want to have a party, you and the kids, and y'all want to have a party and throw drinks around, hey, be my guest. That's your car, you have to live with that mess, I don't go in there.'

And then she got so frustrated with that, because she came back with, 'I take care of the kids and if you want the car cleaned, you have to clean it.' So we was on 16th and Constitution and she kicked me out of the car and I had to walk all the way to the gym. It was probably a mile, but I had on smaller shoes. You know, I wear 13s, but I had on 12s because they matched the outfit I was wearing so my feet were hurting and I didn't have any cab money to take a cab and that all played a part.

So I went on a strike.

I think all men should do this when they have a disagreement. This is Relationship 101. When you have a fight with 'the other,' don't answer their calls and don't answer their pages. That usually gets the point across that you're not talking to them. So, I held out for seven days. I went on strike for seven days and stayed at the gym for seven days. I slept in the gym. They got nice couches in there and it just kept me in the gym working on my knee and stuff.

So, back to the EA event, I didn't have a passport or driver's license to actually go to Canada because I was on strike and I didn't want to go back to the house because she kicked me out. She kicked me out of the car on a Sunday, I had to wait till the following Sunday to talk to her again. Now we're good. She just got her car registered two days ago, we're waiting on that to be finalized but my dad's car still looks like trash day.

You know, it's 'the life.' Everybody thinks we have easy lives, but hey, if you don't want to argue and you don't want to fight, take the high road and sleep in a gym.

Alexander Ovechkin has a blog now, I see. I met him when he first came to D.C. He used to come to the games front row and to practice too and watch me play because both of his parents play basketball. So I heard he had a little skill and he gave me his jersey. I like watching the Capitals games just to see people getting hit against the glass. That's my thing; watching people get hammered against the glass. As far as his blog goes, anybody can have a blog -- monkeys can have blogs -- but if it's not good or funny than it's not good or funny. The problem with athletes getting blogs now is that they get blogs thinking they can hide away from the media, but, no, you still have to talk to the media. It's just something that's added to put fans in your everyday life, that's all. You give yourself a little bit of a human side.

SLAM Magazine has a color way too for my new sneakers so, I'm going to put it in their heads now, if they have a color that means I'm going to be on my next SLAM cover. It has to be. You can't have your own color of my shoe and put me in the back of the book! You have to put me on the cover, right? So right now, we already know, that I'm going to be on my second cover with my new SLAM shoe.

Other than that we have some other colors:

Redskins
Our Away Jersey ' You know, the black and gold. But it looks like the Saints colors, so when we play in New Orleans I might wear them.

In my next blog post I should be ready with the schedule of what city is going to get what shoe so the fans in that city know what shoe they're getting. So if you like the color that's coming out in L.A. and you live in Minnesota, hey, you got to find a friend that lives in L.A.

I think adidas did a great job doing this. We came up with a great concept and it should be great, we're the first people to do it.

I just wanted to send my thoughts out to Jameer Nelson and his family after hearing that his dad died in a tragic accident. I'm really close with my dad, so I can only imagine how hard it is for Jameer.

I have something cool going on tonight. I am getting all of my sponsors together in one place ' adidas, EA Sports, Spalding, Vitamin Water, Fox Sports Net (who are giving me my own video game show) and another secret one you don't know about yet ' and I'm taking them all out to dinner. Morton's, baby. (Actually, if you think about it, they're all technically taking me out to dinner everyday, but let's pretend to ignore that). I want to do this every year to get everybody on the same page and give everybody a chance to collab together and see what we can come up with.

You know, I never play Fantasy Basketball but I always hear a lot about it. The ball boys in every city are like, 'Hey Gil. So, how do you feel tonight? Because I have you on my fantasy team '' I'm like, 'Yeah ' I feel good ' What do you win if I do well? Are we splitting it 50-50? If we are then I'll go out and score 40!' One time a kid was yelling from the stands, 'I need you to score two more points! Two more points! Two more points!' So I was like, 'OK, here goes your two!' and I let it fly.

I just love Fantasy because it brings fun back into sports.

NBA.com has me ranked as the No. 1 fantasy point guard. That's what I'm talking about. Showing the love. My swagger got me No. 1. It wasn't my actual basketball skills, it was my swag. Steve Nash's swag is not like mine. He may throw them dimes, but I throw the one-liner. Nash, Kidd, Chris Paul and Deron Williams round out the top five. That's a great list to have behind me. Those guys deserve to be back there. That's nice. Ha.

I just did a commercial for EA Sports. I was doing the voice over for a commercial coming out for NBA LIVE 08. So the guy who won the $100,000 tournament for NBA LIVE 08, Jordan Simmons, was on the set and I played against him. And I beat him. He went with the Blazers because he's from Portland and he said he'd give me a chance to score 50 on Nate. I didn't score 50, I scored 27, but the best part about it was ' non-scripted ' guess who hit the game winner? The video game version of Gilbert Arenas. Yessir. Game winner from 15 feet. Jordan was mad.

For all the people who are trying to get the backboards, rims and balls from my Spalding challenge on GilsArena.com, there were about six or eight thousand people who have submitted essays already, so you gotta hurry up! We have a team of readers standing by.

Now to recap, you got to pay attention to my next three blog posts because they're going to be important. I'll give you a break down: The next blog will be about what shoes will be coming out in what city and after that I'm going to be giving a full preview of NBA LIVE 08 and I can't wait for my special post at the end of the month. High schools kids and junior high kids will want to focus on that one because it really is going to be special. It will give kids the chance to become stars.

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Friends, rivals, or friendly rivals?
Mitchell Layton/NBAE/Getty Images

If you go to GilsArena.com, I'm giving three lucky fans the chance to win a Spalding court. They get the rim, the backboard, Spalding balls, and all the rest of the accessories. All you have to do is submit an essay on GilsArena.com on why you are the one that needs or deserves the court. I'll have the contest running now until October 1st. That gives you a month to submit your essay.

Speaking of Spalding, I did a Spalding commercial with Vince Young in Tennessee. We went to the Titans field. That was the first time I was actually on the field of an NFL football team. That was amazing. The shoot was for like five hours and we talked for four hours and 30 minutes of it. He's down to earth.

He's in my Fab 5 now. Is that how you say it?

He's a cool guy. He gave me his video game. He gave me Madden '08 that's juiced up. He's juiced up in it so I get to go ahead and cheat online with it.

I need to tell you guys more about my new shoe. I mentioned it before, but now that the details are being worked out, I'm even more excited about it. They're called the Gil 20's. That means that there are 20 different versions coming out in 20 cities. That means what whatever version you buy in D.C., you can't buy in L.A. Or whatever comes out in L.A., you can't get in Miami.

So this is for all the shoeheads, I'm trying out a new something new. It's never been done before. Every shoe is totally different. I'm hoping David Stern lets me wear all the different versions without giving me a fine. We'll see. So there will be 20 different shoes in 20 different cities with 20 different release dates and I should have the schedule for you guys the next time I blog so you'll know what color comes out in what city. I can give you a couple ideas of what the shoes are called though:

Black President
Agent Zero
Hibachi (That Benihana's collabbed with me.)
Coke Zero (That you can only get through Coke Rewards.)
Don't Watch Me, Watch TV
NBA LIVE 08 (The only way you can win this is from 2,000 golden tickets inserted into copies of the game. They're doing the whole Willy Wonka thing.)
Halo 3 (That Microsoft worked on.)

You'll only be able to buy them in certain stores. Your big sporting good stores are going to sell them, but most of them will go to the specialty shoe stores and the underground sneaker shops. It should cause a lot of hype because they are some good looking shoes.

This isn't the big thing that I was talking about, that's happening in a couple more weeks. That's going to be huge.

I got to Arizona late for the alumni game and I guess Richard Jefferson read an excerpt from my blog , in the paper about 10 minutes before he did his press conference to announce that he was donating $3.5 million to the school to build a new practice court in his name. But I was telling him, 'You have to do that because seven out of 10 people don't know you enough to even remember what jersey number you wore in college. Ten out of 10 people know what I wore, seven out of 10 don't know what he wore. So by him having that gym, that gives him some clout. He's still going to be behind me with the fans, but now he has his own gym with his own name on it to go work out. That's cute.

Richard said:

'Luke Walton just signed a $30 million contract, I think he can at least spare $1 million. I think $1 million is not too much to ask. Gilbert is going to sign for more than all of us combined, so after he opts out he'll probably get $130 million. Gilbert really has no excuse, especially since he's throwing $2 million birthday parties, so I think he can afford to give back just a little bit."

See, I've been donating since I got into the league, so I've donated more than the $3.5 he did for his selfish gym. It's a selfish gym. It's a gym that is celebrating Richard Jefferson. I'm donating to people. I'm helping people. He's trying to be one of the elite Arizona players ever, which he's not right now. Unfortunately, I had to be the one to say that he's like the third favorite. But I think his stock is dropping. He's like fourth now. I don't know what happened to cause it, but he's fourth now. The R-Jeff market is in a recession.

So we joked about that the whole time. Him and I had a lot of fun. I didn't realize that I was still a little rock star in Arizona. I'm a rock star bay-bay! I didn't know I was still popular like that. I've been out of school for six years.

The game was a lot of fun. The famous Steve Kerr had an airball. I don't know how that happened. But he still hit about four or five threes. I was playing around a little bit at the beginning and one of the assistants, Josh Pastner, said that I wasn't going to score 20 points in the second half or we'd have to count 20 push-ups in front of everybody. And I had 20 points in the second half. And he got down and gave me 20, pushin' it up.

Dave Hopla is good for me because he's the one who taught me to shoot when I was little. He's been working with me since I was 13 years old when I first entered camp. So having him there again everyday should just make me better.

He's been here working with the guys, my teammates' shots are getting better. You can see what he did for Toronto and their shooting last year. He does an amazing job, so that's a plus for us right now.

I heard about Eddie Griffin. Oh man. I didn't know him personally, but for a guy who was in my draft, you just have to hope he rests in peace and give condolences to his family. When I found out I was like, 'What?! Oh my God!' When I called other players it was all the same, everybody was going crazy and just like, 'Damn. How'd he get hit by a train?'

I stopped my shots at 50,000. I'm not going for 100,000 anymore. I did 50,000 in 26 days. What happened was I sat out a couple days and that turned into a whole week because my arm was sore. I thought tendonitis might be starting to kick in so I had to shut the 100,000 down. Then I had to balance out by working out and doing drills and dribbling the ball because I wasn't dribbling before, I was just sitting there shooting. I was looking like Jud Buechler. The way I was going, I was preparing just to be a spot-up shooter. I'll save that role for my after years, then I'll just be a spot-up.

They told me it was just too much on my arms and I needed to work in some of my legs and footwork stuff so I stopped at 50 k and I still had like 45 days left to reach my goal. But now I'm working on my overall balance and I'm back at 100 percent healthy s